


Revelation 6:8

by Melanthios



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Death, Deer Gods, Gods, Human Sacrifice, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Old Gods, Post-Series, Pre-Christian Gods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 08:46:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8049841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melanthios/pseuds/Melanthios
Summary: Once, Death tried being human for a little while.





	Revelation 6:8

**Author's Note:**

  * For [detainyou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/detainyou/gifts).



_To judge him by our own laws is futile, for he is not bound by these. To expect in him our own mores is futile, for he has them not. To fight against him is futile, he is inexorable._

_He comes._

_He comes._

_He comes._

_—Story of the Great Black Stag_

* * *

 

When he woke, it was to dim blue light, imperceptibly shifting; it was to a lack of pain, conspicuous in its absence; it was to a velvet silence, no sound but the distant echo of water.

And he was alone.

Will looked up, seeing clusters of stars above him that were not stars, swaying and shifting, twitching, running together in clumps like clots of blood. Slowly, he stood up, feet bare, skin bare, the air around him shifting and breathing, softer than a breeze, stiller. Turning, his foot slipped on a ledge—he lifted it up and away, stumbling back, heard a stone drop into a deep pool that sparked blue ripples that threw their cries of light into the shadows, illuminating.

A cave. He was in a cave.

‘Will?’ came a soft voice; and finally, finally, Will could feel his _own_ feelings, feel _his_ reaction. His breath caught, his heart fluttered.

‘I’m here,’ he said, softly, cautious, crouching, crawling over the stone, feeling it bare and lifeless beneath his hands, feeling his way across the space between them. ‘I’m here.’

Arms, bare as his, and as clean and blank of blood and wounds. Will melted into them, against a chest that felt more bony, felt the velvet touch of lips on his hair, the bone-click of a kiss. He closed his eyes, and for once his mind was clear, and still, and dark. Nothing lay beneath his eyelids, no visions came.

Because they _had_ been visions, Will realised with slow and peaceful clarity; not hallucinations, not nightmares—visions, rife with symbols and repetition and blood.

He reached up, sliding his hand over Hannibal’s face, up into the fineness of his hair, up until he felt the bone, the points…

_He comes!_

That was what Will always heard when Hannibal came to see him at home, the few times he had. All had gone still, all quiet, and then a single, urgent whisper, as though the forest itself were speaking in furtive shadows, manic in her devotion: _He comes!_

He felt Hannibal’s hand catch his, slowly guide it over to Will’s own head, fingers brushing against something soft and alien that sparked sensation over Will’s body. He gentled his touch, realising the feel of velvet, the soft prongs that would become sharp with months of growth.

 _His_ prongs, _his_ velvet.

_He comes! Comes the prince!_

The whispers in the woods had always followed him, but got only louder after he’d met Hannibal. Will strained in the darkness, seeing two sparks of cold fire, eyes in the night.

‘He comes,’ fell from his lips. A soft kiss to his forehead, a familiar cradling of his face.

‘The voices of the most devoted,’ he said, his voice possessing a quiet it had not before, a gentleness to the edges. ‘Those who wear echoes of our crown.’

‘The deer?’ Will felt very little of the shock and disbelief he _should_ be feeling, as he looked into those black, shining eyes. Such feelings, such barriers, seemed far away here, in the dark, alone. ‘I… I can feel… animals?’

‘All animals possess the capacity for emotion, and many for thought.’

It had been niggling the back of his mind before, all his life; but he’d not wanted to know. It had been safer to have a disorder, than to face the reality of being an empath, a psion as they were classified. Dangerous. Someone with an empathy disorder wasn’t dangerous, couldn’t be. Someone with Powers, on the other hand….

But here, there was no room for lies he told himself. ‘They knew,’ he said, ‘What you were trying to tell me. They knew. But what had they known?’ Will felt it at the edge of his thoughts, something his conscious mind still pushed hastily away, like the first look at a mutilated corpse was only brushstrokes of light and lurid colour. The brain tried to protect itself.

‘When He calls your name, you come,’ Hannibal said, the whisper echoing in the dark.

‘I’ve… heard those words.’ Will remembered, frowning, trying to think. Every time he reached out to the answer, it skittered away.

‘Perhaps the Christian would be more familiar to you,’ Hannibal said quietly, and Will felt his lips move against Will’s temple, his arms still wrapped around, Will still nestled in his embrace, listening. ‘ “And behold, a pale horse, and His name that sat on him…”. ’

The stillness went on, the stars went on with their not-starlight, the water murmured, the dark was, and Hannibal’s arms were still soft and sure and safe. Will didn’t feel anything change at all—because, he realised, nothing had.

Stretching out in his mind was the entirety of what he knew about Hannibal, the filter changed. All the words, all the actions, seen through a different light.

‘…You’re a _god_ ,’ Will gave a half-frantic scream of laughter, putting a hand over his mouth as though to catch it before it got out. ‘You… you took. Sacrifices. And ate them.’

‘What else did you think we did with sacrifices, Will?’ Hannibal’s voice was curled in a smile. 

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic was inspired by two things: First, I grew up on Watership Down and other such books that planted the idea in my head that animals have religions of their own. Sometime during my first watch of Hannibal, I had an ephiphany about the Nightmare Stag: 'Deer worship not Life, but Death. _Prey animals worship Death that just **makes sense**.'_ Second, I am also the sort of pagan that worships Mr Grim (he's a nice man). When I saw Hannibal, like many religious people I saw symbolism and subtext from my own beliefs, and quite early on picked up on what I interpreted as clear indications that Hannibal was Death himself, come to the mortal plane a little while to try his best at being human.
> 
> 'When He calls your name, you come,' is from Watership Down. It references Death also, whom they call Inlé, the Moon.


End file.
